How and Nosm have a show opening this week with Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC, but not at the gallery’s usual location. The duo’s Late Confessions show opens this Friday evening (7-9pm) at 557 W 23rd Street in Chelsea. Caroline and I stopped by the show over the weekend for a preview and were both very impressed. I’ll have to go back at some point to look at everything properly, but it seems to be some of the best work I’ve seen from How and Nosm to date.

Sometimes the extreme detail and intricate layering of complex visuals in How and Nosm’s artwork is a bit too much for me. I just can’t follow everything. In those cases, I feel like I’m seeing too much at once, and my brain just shuts down to the point where I see and understand nothing rather than at least part of the whole. I know that many people get a very different experience, and the qualities that I’m describing are exactly why they love How and Nosm’s work so much. Those fans need not worry. There’s plenty for them at Late Confessions. But for people like me who can reach a point of sensory overload with the complex pieces and long for something easier to follow, How and Nosm also have a good number of simpler-to-read works in the show. The artists took a risk with that decision. The simple works could have fallen flat and exposed a hollowness masked by the more complex works, but instead, I think the simpler works are some of the best paintings at Late Confessions. They are visually engaging on their own, and in a wider context, they helped me to better-understand the worlds that How and Nosm develop in their more chaotic paintings.

Late Confessions opens on February 1st from 7-9pm and runs through February 23rd at 557 W 23rd Street, New York City.

Hm… I understand but I have to disagree. I was not overwhelmed by the detail. I looked at a piece and felt like there was so much there to be discovered – dialogues and themes that needed to be pieced together rather than just handed out to viewers.

Maybe most people are used to looking at a portrait and seeing a face or a landscape immediately and only reading into the smaller details if they choose. Maybe most people like that effortless clarity. Personally, I like that How and Nosms’ work demands to be combed through and appreciated for its finer components. I mean, wow, maybe they only get away with it because they’re really artistically talented – so its like chaos from afar but skillful drawings close up.
To sum it up: Yes, there’s a lot going on but it’s captivating.

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